Matt Simonds: Pick Two Things and Go All In

Matt Simonds had five sales his first year in real estate while building relationships that took longer to pay off than a scoreboard shows. Eight years later, he is one of Bolst's top agents, with access to off-market listings other agents never hear about, a tight-knit mastermind group that meets monthly, and a marketing strategy built around LinkedIn instead of Instagram. In this episode, Matt and Justin talk through how he built relationships across the Atlanta agent community that now get him invited to pre-market listings, what switching to a capped-commission brokerage did to his bottom line, and why he believes most agents fail not from lack of good ideas but from spreading themselves across too many of them.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I think one thing that's become popular the last few years is um just like broker previews, sneak peeks, broker opens, price evaluations. And I just was really intentional for a year or two about going to as many as I could possibly go to, uh, meeting as many agents as I could meet, especially in my target areas. In doing that, you know, you develop relationships with them, and then you get invited and you get sneak peeks, you get the early look, you get access to inventory that other people don't know about.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome to the Justin Landis show, your real estate podcast about having conversations, building relationships, and creating freedom. And today I'm here with my good friend and one of our top bolst agents, Matt Simons. Matt, thanks for being here today.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah, honored to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So, Matt, on this podcast, we talk about a wide range. We've been talking about AI, we're talking about social media, we're talking about marketing. And today we're gonna talk a little bit about relationships. That's been one of your calling cards. So tell us a little bit before we get into that, how you we always do a little origin story. How'd you get into real estate and get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yeah, no, I I started uh about eight years ago, and um it's always hard to get that first client. So uh first client is not an easy one to get. How'd you do that? Uh well, it was one of my one of my college best friends, so he had to hire me. Um had no choice. Friendship is over. But I worked really hard for him because he was my only client. But um, but no, it was it was good. And then um you have you know, you always have um, you know, ways to try and build and scale. And I, you know, I just really took the approach that I was going to be very relational in my business. I was in a transactional sales job before and um just didn't have time for the relationships, neither, neither, neither side did in the in the sales role. So this is totally different. It's I always tell people it's impossible to shop for a house with someone without getting into what matters to them, their values, their dreams, their goals for their family, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

So, how did you do that? We talked a lot, we talked a lot about relational businesses, but people do things a little bit different. What did you do when you're like, I want to build it relationally, what did you practically do to do that at the beginning?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, I mean, I just went to lunch with everybody. Um, and I had kind of missed out on catching up with a lot of people in my life. And um, I wanted to I I it, you know, as much as I I wanted it to lead to a client at some point, I it was not about that. It was more about just like genuinely catching up on their life, what they're up to, and you know, what's new with them. Um I think people people like that more than being sold to.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

And then how long did it take for to really get some traction and actually start to work?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

It probably took a year and a half.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah. It probably took a year and a half. Um and you know, had had five sales my first year, but you know, not not not that much, you know, and then um uh, you know, but it's it it it was it was building for the future, really.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah. We have such similar paths at the beginning. That my because I've shared this with you before. My first year, my goal was one face-to-face every day. And I'm like, if I meet 250 people, different people this year, face to face, a nice bring up real estate, try to be helpful. Surely some of them are gonna need to buy and sell houses. But honestly, that first year, not that many did. It was really the second year of doing that and following up and being helpful that and getting connected to other people that it really did start to take off. And so, you know, we had those similar starts, but we didn't know each other then. Yeah, you want to share how we met?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, we met through our kids' school. Um, you know, my oldest goes to school with your youngest. That might say something about our age gap. Yeah. I look older than I am, right? But um, but yeah, no, uh, they we had a really sweet school, really sweet class, and they're good friends. So um, we got to know each other through that. And then both just it made a lot of sense. And I love the business model and BMB Corp and and everything. So um made the decision to come on over from a previous brokerage.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah, tell a little bit about your business before um we met and before you were at Bullst, and then we'll talk a little bit about what has happened since then. But tell everybody, like when we met and you are not at Bullst, what would you say about your business? How would you describe it at that point?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

I would say honestly, it's it's largely similar. Um the I was with the luxury brokerage here in Atlanta, and I uh my broke my my my business my my business model has not changed. It's um I work with largely uh first-time home buyers and second time home buyer, move up buyers. So sell sell the sell and buy their second house usually. Um largely, I mean that's probably 90% of my business. So none of them necessarily really cared about the brokerage switch. They were hiring me for me. Um some of them have actually appreciated, you know, the the fact that I'm donating a decent percent of my commission to our, you know, our our fund. Yep. Um, you know, that that funds homelessness in Atlanta here. So that has actually helped a little bit, but um, but I don't think necessarily anybody would have not hired me because I left the other shop.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, let's let's walk through that a little bit because I think that that's probably a thing that people are worried about if you're at a name brand or a big, you know, brokerage, you're like, hey, if I go to something local or smaller, will people still work with me? Will they know it? How much does it matter? You were uh, you know, presumably like the best known luxury brand. How much do you think that has made a difference? You know, and how much do you think it makes a difference in general?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

I don't think it makes too much of a difference, to be honest, unless you're in a very luxury price point. Um, I think then maybe it can. But the, you know, in my business model, I think people care about, you know, I think they care about a few things. They care about uh knowing me or knowing someone who who does know me or trusts me, um, and then or has worked with me in the past. Um, and they and they also just want to know that they're gonna be serviced really, really well um throughout the process and that that I know what I'm doing and that I know my price points. I think I think those things are the are kind of the deciding factor for most people. Um neighborhood comes into play sometimes too. For sure. But um, you know, just being a subject matter expert of a certain area, um I lost that on listening appointment in Summerhill uh not too long ago, but I've only sold one house down there, you know, and the other guy had you know was able to say he'd sold 30. And then so I was like, okay, I don't feel the too terribly bad losing that one, you know. Um so I think that all of that kind of combined fits fits the the piece of the pie.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah. Well, there's a there's a lot of options on both sides, the big and the small. What was it as we started to talk about bolts that you know led you to pick bolst when there are other options available as well?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah. I mean, I think financials had a big big part to do with it. Yeah, um, it was a big delta swing for me. And then I think that I I really loved the I just love the business model of being able to get back. And then I also love uh the the ability to build a sense of community within the brokerage.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Um which you've definitely done. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to actually kind of break down each of those um if you're open to it. On the financial side, I was looking, you got a you're having a great year, you got a lot under contract. It looked like to me like four and a half million or so under contract, which I think you're going to pay Bullst a total of $500 on $100 a piece because we have a capped model where once you pay in a certain amount each year, you keep the rest of it. If you were not at Bolst and at your previous brokerage, on that four and a half million dollars, what do you think you would have paid into the brokerage on that? I mean, a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Uh I mean probably 15, maybe 15, maybe, maybe, maybe 20.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, and so you're gonna do five times that this year. You take the 20 times five. That's sending the kids to school and you're going on vacation, and I mean lots of stuff, right? Yeah, yeah, it's it's a big, it's a big swing. It is a big swing. But even with that swing of spending less, you have done amazing here. And from my observation, I do think the community you've built has been really helpful for your business and other people in the brokerage. Talk a little bit about the community that you've built over the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah, we we we push each other. Um, I think there's there's a sense of uh cheerleading at least a little bit, maybe. Um, like I'm truly happy for my quote unquote competitors that uh are you know going after the same buyers and sellers that I am. Um I think that's unique um because real estate can be a lonely place. We deal with people's problems all day long.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

And just to have somebody to call and vent to is huge. Um I think we have that um here in different groups. Yeah. Um and in our our our little group is tight knit and I you know I I love it. Um you know we you know we have a pretty very active text thread, you know, that's probably daily. Um and then we have a mastermind group that meets once a month and you know, just talking through different strategies and different things that someone may want to implement. Some that you know, somebody's doing this over here. Oh, maybe I need to think about doing that. Um, and different target markets so that we can be collaborative. So um really really unique um in this industry, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah. I've really loved so to set it up for the listeners, there's a group Matt's with a group of other, maybe six other folks, and they get together once a month. And um usually I join them and we kind of talk about different topics and they share. Um, and as I was looking at everybody's numbers last year, I mean, the growth that people have had is so awesome. And as I kind of reflected on it, it's like, well, what is it? Of course, I wish it was like me giving some like secret sauce or something, but it's not. It's that community to me, like that text thread, the stuff y'all are helping each other with. I'm like, man, the value of this is really high. And so I think from like any real estate agent listening, like if you don't have a community, you need to be able to find you either be somewhere that there is one or create your own or something, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, yeah, go build it. Um, we did we even did a lake retreat to start off the year with setting goals. And I mean, Justin came and didn't have to, but um you know, it speaks to you um for that. But you know, did did it overnight at the lake and just built more community and just you know, set strategies for how we're gonna conquer this year and um you know continue to grow the uh grow a growing business. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we all run small small small businesses, self-employed businesses. And so we, you know, if you're not growing, you're dying. So um you know, we it was it was really fun to kind of spend that time together and and and develop all those strategies and then put some new things into place. So good.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah, that was so awesome. You on the relationship side, I've also been really impressed, not just internally here at Bulls, but you have great relationships across brokerages, across the city. And I think it's really helped you with your business. I think it really helps your clients. Talk a little bit about why you decided to do that and the actual technique of how you've done that.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah. Um, I I think one thing that's become popular the last few years is um just like broker previews, sneak peeks, broker opens, price evaluations. And I just was really intentional for a year or two about going to as many as I could possibly go to, uh, meeting as many agents as I could meet, um especially in my target areas. Um and in doing that, you know, you develop relationships with them, and then you you get invited and you get sneak peeks, you get the early look, you get access to inventory that other people don't know about. And you if you if you do it organically, and then um you know, if you have great transactions with people where you negotiate in a way that is not rude, um and is not and and you know fair to both sides, but but not rude, and respect out of I like I like to negotiate from a place out of respect. Yep. Um, always and uh respect for the other agent, respect for the for the seller if if I'm rejecting the buyer, or vice versa. Um but I think doing that has gotten me access to stuff that I would not have.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

When you say stuff, that means houses that are not on the market.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah. Yeah. I drove here from a house that was pre-market that I'm under contract on that I would not have known about if I did it was not, I had I didn't have a great relationship with that agent.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

So if somebody is listening to this and they're like, oh man, Matt's way ahead of me. I don't have any of these relationships, I'm not getting it. What is the what are the first steps for somebody? Because you're not going to do this in one week. Yeah. What are the first steps for someone to be able to build those relationships? What advice would you give?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I mean, you don't just go to the broker open or the pricey vow, add value. You know, spend the time there, have the lengthy conversation. Don't just go and take pictures, um, put it on your Instagram story. Uh but you can do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

You can do that.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

You can do that too. It's not my business model, but you can do that too. But but go and actually have the conversation with someone, learn about and and learn about their life. It's the same thing with with clients, like yeah, or your sphere to get a client. Like learn learn about their kids.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

You were telling me um recently that it an event you had that another awesome agent in Atlanta, not at the same burgerage that y'all are having a life conversation, and that you know, that's what helps build these relationships.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

You know, yeah, 100%. Yeah. And and those are great conversations. And I I enjoy having those conversations too. So it it's not it's not not authentic. Um, and so I think that's a big piece of it too.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

So I mean it's be you and and go meet people and uh you know get in their, you know, get in their phone book because as you prefer, because as you go to the ones, just to break it down for everybody listening simply, is you a lot of caravans and broker opens are publicly they're open, invited to everyone, right? And so you just see what they are and you start to go and you build the relationships. And then as you start to have those relationships and actually know each other, then some of the ones that are more select and invite only, you start to be on that invite list.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

And then you can return the favor on yours as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Well, and it helps on your listings too, because now I have these people that I if I'm loyal going to all of theirs, then they they show up to buy. And it's a it's a major value add for your seller, especially if it's a tough property at price. Yeah. Um, so you get a you get kind of a quorum on price from the industry without having gone to market yet.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So and what a value to the seller compared to uh blast something out, I have three people who don't really know the market come because they wanted a free bottle of wine, versus I've got 20 people that do actually know the market coming to get that feedback. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, and it's and it's very it can be very helpful when, especially in low inventory market that we've been in, you know, it's changing a little bit, but um low inventory market, it's it can be tough to comp. Yep. So um sellers are often on the fence and in a changing market too. They often might be a little bit high. And um, and this can kind of show them where you know where we might want to be if if their goal is to to move it quickly.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

You joked about um posting it on Instagram, and you are not a big Instagram poster. However, your houses do get on Instagram a lot, which I find like is a really this is a strategy we have not covered here yet. And I'm curious for you to tell everybody a little bit about how your houses get posted on Instagram, but you're not big at posting on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

No, I'm not. Um I I just have never been a social media fan. Um, I didn't even have an account before I started in this industry. But but yeah, I I just I simply leverage the people that like to do that. Um and if I have a listing that is, you know, really well decorated or I know it's gonna be popular, it's in a great neighborhood, that kind of thing, um, you know, I'll I'll do a broker open and have and I'll just repost all of the pictures that people post and um and then it kind of spreads that way. And then it but it also gets to their network, which is more almost almost arguably more important. So yeah, I I and last spring I sold a house that um it got posted a ton of times, and then the the the would-be buyer, their in-buyer, it wasn't even um, they weren't even shopping that area. They were shopping Buckhead, this was in Sandy Springs, but they were like, we gotta go see it, and then they ended up being the one buying it.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Wow. And you told me that last week one of your sellers said something about they noticed how many people were posting it.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I I get that sometimes too. I mean, that because they use it more than I use it, and so they see it, um, or their friends will see it and be like, hey, this is this your house, you know. Um, so I've gotten that a few different instances.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah. So we've covered a lot of different marketing strategies on here and relationship strategies. And as you move forward, your plan is to continue the relational piece of the business, both uh internally, here it bolts, externally with the agent community and with your um sphere and the people that you know. And you feel confident, even with AI, with whatever Instagram, all the sort of stuff, that that's going to be a successful strategy moving forward. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

I think it's I think it's the the most likely to bring in a client, um, just because it's so it's so much more personal. Um there are certainly agents that succeed with, you know, cold calling expireds and and door knocking and other methods, but um you know, I think for me it's it's it's a high it's a high intrinsic value as well that I enjoy. So I think that's that's a piece of it that I want to continue doing.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, I so agree on the intrinsic value you're bringing to the relationship. The there is one place that you have done some stuff online, and it makes me think um last week I talked with Kristen from the Kristen show, and she has a huge Instagram following. I mean, huge following, and she's very vulnerable and she's such herself, but she also said, Hey, I know my audience is on Instagram. You've been doing some stuff on LinkedIn, and I think that's because you've thought that, hey, your audience might not be on Instagram, it might be on LinkedIn. Talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Yeah, I I just I I reflecting back, I was looking through all most of my clients, and um I tend to get hired by a data-driven male. And I they most of them don't even have an Instagram profile. Um, and but a lot of them use LinkedIn. Um, and so and there's not really many residential real estate agents that market on LinkedIn. And so um I said, all right, well, let's take a swing at that and see if that might work. Um and and bring in somebody who may not be in my sphere. Um you know, that additional 10% of clients. But um but yeah, it I mean it was it was funny. I even got a call. I got a call from um it was a my one of my best friends, his brother-in-law, he lives in Nashville, and he was shopping, he's was like, I'm shopping for a house right now. And no, he was like, You're the only real estate agent that is marketing to me. And he was like, I can't work in this market, but you know, he's like, No, why is no one else doing this? You know, he's like, and then he was like, I didn't he runs a bank and he's like, I I need I might need to start doing this. So um I think there's I think there's something to to do with that, to know who your audience is and to target them specifically, and then not try and go after someone who's probably not gonna hire you anyway, uh, that might choose somebody different, you know, whether that, you know, if it's a female decision maker, a lot of times, you know, I don't get the job, but uh um, but yeah, so I think I think there's a piece to that as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

That it's interesting because it's such a different, you know, the platforms and the content and all that are so different, but it is so similar to what Kristen was saying about being authentic, the authentic version of yourself. That's what's going to resonate with people. Um, LinkedIn is my favorite social media platform. When I first started using it, someone suggested to me to do it, and they were like, Justin, LinkedIn is almost all business and almost all positive. That's a perfect fit for you. And I was like, wait, that is me. I do love to be super positive and I do love business. And so that is a better, that is a better fit. Um, and so you know, while I work to do content across platforms, it's easiest for me on LinkedIn because it is like the most n it is the most natural fit. And so I think if anybody's listening, you're going to pick like one thing to go further. You probably do want to pick the one that your audience is on and is most natural to you. And, you know, to wrap up on Kristen, she is really only on Instagram, which is kind of surprising for the amount of media that she does, that she's just picked one, but she's like, I want to be all in on what I'm doing and do it the best that it can be done. And I think that's an opportunity that you know people could take LinkedIn, they could take Instagram, TikTok, whatever it is. But I think to wrap up with you, you've done it on the relationships. And we've outlined the three ways internally at your own brokerage, externally with the agent community, and then in your actual community. And you know, it's paying off in absolute spades. And I really appreciate you sharing with us today your journey of how you built that.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

No, I appreciate you having me. And I I would say my only final thing would be that you know I things you think you have said a couple different times is that, you know, there I think you just touched on it a little bit, but the way you said it in the past was that, you know, you can you could do 30 additional things to try and grow your business, but pick pick two and go all in, you know. And I think I think that is a great message for every agent out there.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, and I think that's a hard message in this industry because we see so many things. And a lot of them can work. We could probably list out 30 things that actually could work for someone. Yeah. They're not going to work all for one person, right? And so that's why like you do that one or two. You mentioned a couple things that I have not done and would not be good at door knocking and expireds. But if you did do those, you'd be way better on the 2000th attempt than you would on the second attempt. You probably need to do them 2,000 times. And if you do them 2,000 times, you probably will be good at them. If you have coffee with 2,000 people, the 2000th coffee is going to be better as well than the second one. And so, yeah, I mean, I love how you've stuck to your lane, um, not gotten distracted by the shiny outside things. And I think it's really paid off for you. So, man, thanks for being here and sharing today. Yep. Thank you. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening today. Make sure that you like and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And I will see you again next week.